Yoga Happens Every Day—Temper Tantrums And All

Tag Archives: feelings

Today I think about forgiveness.
I think about healing.
I remember the phraseLet go or be dragged.
I pray for the strength to forgive.
I ask about the purpose of this pain.
I wonder what my feelings
want to teach me.
I want it all to change.
I wonder if healing happensthrough
not in spite of
the feelings.
I ask for the strength
to allow myself to feel
whatever is arising in this moment.
I wonder if I have the resolve to keep going.
Just who exactly grieves the loss
of the one who never knew or loved the true me?
The logical one is glad he’s done…
he won’t be my problem anymore.

Raw. Vulnerable.
Exposed.
Strong. Confident.
At ease.
Grief, then joy.
Exhaustion, then motivation.
Emptiness, then fulfillment.
For so long I thought the goal
was never-ending bliss.
Then I grew up (a little).
Now I see that to be fully human
means to experience
the full range of human emotions.
Each one has a story to tell,
a lesson to impart.
And we are meant to learn
our whole lives.
We will never be done.

I have made it through another day.
The anxiety, the sadness,
the worry, the fear,
the questioning,
the deep longing for connection
beyond what I have known,
the hunger,
the anger,
the absolute loneliness,
the exhaustion,
the pain in my neck,
the doubt, the nostalgia—
I made it through all of it.
And there was hope.
There was gratitude,
humor,
some moments of graceful expansion,
clear sight,
beauty.
I took time to care for myself,
to nourish myself,
to feed my heart with the words of poets,
to feed my body with the bounty of the earth.
It was a day I’ll never live again,
unique in all of my days.
And I made it through.

It changes quickly.
(It always does.)
A good night of sleep
or a solid meal
and the demons
that seemed so ferocious
yesterday
dissipate back into wisps of ether,
and I’m left wondering
what I got so worked up about.
And so it goes,
the cyclical nature
of weather and emotions
and time and libidos…
and all I can do
is try to slow down
my own thinking
take a deep breath,
and rememberall is well.

PS

I have found that my journals help to reveal the cyclical nature of things. They have been a source of great comfort to me, as I see that the struggles I’m having now are the same ones I had when I was 20. Different characters, different contexts, but same feelings: fear, anxiety, depression, powerlessness, loneliness, transmuted into courage, confidence, joy, empowerment, connection. Cycling endlessly, for all time.

And then I realized
this suffering isn’t
some nuisance to be tolerated…
it’s an opportunity
to dive deep within myself
and learn something.
It’s a chance to trust
that what I’ve been given
is what I’m meant to have
(for now)
and as I shift inside
I’ll see the shifts on the outside too.
It’s a confrontation
with the old, outworn stories,
a chance to rewrite the narrative
into something deeper,
something more beautiful,
more meaningful than before.
And I turn to my higher power,
saying,Let this be an initiationinto profound understanding.Let this be a signpostthat I’ve moved into a territoryof authentic feeling.
Facing what arises,
loving what I cannot yet understand,
faithful that whatever brought me here
won’t leave me here to die…
Awakening to what is
and who I am,
seeing the truth of my deepest Self.

I search for meaning
because I want all of this
to mean something…
but what if this was all
impersonal?
What if I could step back,
take a deep breath, relax,
and not see any of this
as a threat?
Peace would come quickly then.
All of the stories of heartbreak,
loss, suffering, injustice
emerge from a sense of self
separate from the world around it.
If I could merge my consciousness
with that of the world’s,
wouldn’t I laugh
at the absurdity of it all?
I could cry all day and night
for twenty years,
and it wouldn’t change
the rhythm of the ocean.
Can I let these waves passing through me
be just another indication
that I am one with the ocean of life?

I find my anger is getting out of hand,
hot, explosive, uncontrollable, painful.
I stop and look inside.
Under the anger is grief.
Under the grief is fear,
the belief that something is wrong with me.
Behind the fear
there is a soft, tender spot,
a vulnerability,
the truth of my innocence.
If I can stay in touch with this innocence in me,
then I can see and honor the innocence in others.
And then real relationship is possible.